CONTROL SYSTEMS ENGINEERING D227

SOLUTION Q 11

COMMENT –Even the examiner admits that this question was a gift and its hard to believe that such an
easy question is set alongside questions requiring vastly more effort.

An electric motor rotates an inertia of 160 kg m2 with viscous damping of 640 Nm s/rad. The correcting
action torque is 2880 Nm per radian of misalignment between the shaft and input reference position.

(a) Calculate the steady state misalignment of the mass when a disturbing torque of 1000 Nm is suddenly
applied.

(b) State what additional control action you would include in the forward loop in order to eliminate
misalignment due to step disturbances.

SOLUTION
The diagram visualises the system. %he disturbance is added to the output.

The torque output of the motor is 2880 θe.

The torque must overcome inertia and damping plus the disturbance D
T=Jα+kω+D
d 2θ dθ
T = 2880θ e = J 2 + k + D
dt dt
d 2θ o
2880(θ i − θ o ) = 160
dθ o
+ 640 +D
dt 2 dt
2880θ i − 2880θ o = 160s 2θ o + 640sθ o + D

In the steady state s = 0 2880θe = D = 1000 so θe = 1000/2880 = 0.347 rad Answer (a)

The disturbance produces an offset error. This may be eliminated by introducing integral action in the
controller to increase the value of θe until the offset is removed.